3 ms·

Anyone so concerned with stats that does not work for HN is just looking for more places to waste their time instead of working on their hack/startup. This isn'

by bigtoga 19y ago

Anyone so concerned with stats that does not work for HN is just looking for more places to waste their time instead of working on their hack/startup. This isn't your community; it's a website. You may think of it as your community but where will you be two years from now? Still wasting time on this site asking for stuff like this? No. Google "This too shall pass" for it is the lesson of life. Really - the post today, "Do It Fucking Now", applies here as well lol. Figure out what's important and do that; having stats on this site is not important in your or my life.

rms 19y ago
Your objection here doesn't make any sense. Of course people could be spending more time doing work and less time on news.yc. But asking for stats isn't any better or worse than any other use of this site. Obviously this site isn't a community to you, but it is to some people. It's also entertainment. I'd rather have stats on this website than watch whatever is on network television right now.
bayareaguy 19y ago
Some of us aren't interested in the numbers but we are interested in the patterns behind them, especially if they could be used to identify destructive trends.
- fiaz 19y ago
  Organizations that think like this: DHS FBI CIA DOD KGB Thought Police Please don't add YC.News to this list. It's one of the few places I enjoy on the net at the moment (and of those few, this is my favorite). I don't like the notion of having some sort policing activity to identify "destructive trends" as you call it. Sorry for putting it so bluntly.
  - rrival 19y ago
    Having observed Digg and Reddit devolve, solving this problem has nothing to do with conspiracy theories. This is more about addressing Eternal September concerns (brilliant reference by someone yesterday). History will repeat itself until a clever, llama-free community ahem addresses these problems intelligently. I can't think of a better place for it.
    - fiaz 19y ago
      I'm sorry that you think I was subscribing to some sort of conspiracy theory in listing those organizations. The point I was trying to make is that what has been termed "fluff" is now "destructive trends", and worse it was somehow suggested that by exposing others behaviors (or rather, revealing stats as illustrated in the above description) would somehow lead to a (final?) solution. The degree to which the original "problem" is becoming viewed as cancerous is alarming because I feel that News.YC is a place for diverse thinking and sharing interesting content. Digg/Reddit have devolved because they are more homogenous than they are diverse (hence the mob-like mentality). The very diversity that makes an online community interesting should be embraced instead of eradicated, but that's just my opinion. I know that eventually as News.YC becomes more popular this community will homogenize and follow the same fate as Digg/Reddit. It is inevitable...
      - rrival 19y ago
        It's not inevitable. I'm not sure how long you've been lurking; there is a shared desire to perpetuate the level of discourse in a way that benefits the community. We've also got the "don't say something stupid, the natives are very smart / clever / motivated and deserve your respect" factor, the "ask yc news/ask pg and almost always get intelligent actionable feedback from experienced hackers/entrepreneurs" factor, and the "if I have an idea and demonstrate talent I might get noticed / funded, so I better not say something really stupid" factor. Releasing data is a '?' - if it can be suggested that it may be a means to arrive at some sort of method for automatically/technically ensuring the community doesn't move toward the same kind of mob mentality, that's fantastic, let the heavyweight theory guys find something cool to do with it. If that fails, there's still moderation, and a strong desire to perpetuate the high signal to noise ratio here.
      - bayareaguy 19y ago
        I know that eventually as News.YC becomes more popular this community will homogenize Suppose you wanted to convince someone who doesn't "know" that. Don't you think the right data could prove your point?
        19y ago

by bigtoga 19y ago

rms 19y ago

Your objection here doesn't make any sense. Of course people could be spending more time doing work and less time on news.yc. But asking for stats isn't any better or worse than any other use of this site. Obviously this site isn't a community to you, but it is to some people. It's also entertainment. I'd rather have stats on this website than watch whatever is on network television right now.

bayareaguy 19y ago

Some of us aren't interested in the numbers but we are interested in the patterns behind them, especially if they could be used to identify destructive trends.

fiaz 19y ago
Organizations that think like this: DHS FBI CIA DOD KGB Thought Police Please don't add YC.News to this list. It's one of the few places I enjoy on the net at the moment (and of those few, this is my favorite). I don't like the notion of having some sort policing activity to identify "destructive trends" as you call it. Sorry for putting it so bluntly.
- rrival 19y ago
  Having observed Digg and Reddit devolve, solving this problem has nothing to do with conspiracy theories. This is more about addressing Eternal September concerns (brilliant reference by someone yesterday). History will repeat itself until a clever, llama-free community ahem addresses these problems intelligently. I can't think of a better place for it.
  - fiaz 19y ago
    I'm sorry that you think I was subscribing to some sort of conspiracy theory in listing those organizations. The point I was trying to make is that what has been termed "fluff" is now "destructive trends", and worse it was somehow suggested that by exposing others behaviors (or rather, revealing stats as illustrated in the above description) would somehow lead to a (final?) solution. The degree to which the original "problem" is becoming viewed as cancerous is alarming because I feel that News.YC is a place for diverse thinking and sharing interesting content. Digg/Reddit have devolved because they are more homogenous than they are diverse (hence the mob-like mentality). The very diversity that makes an online community interesting should be embraced instead of eradicated, but that's just my opinion. I know that eventually as News.YC becomes more popular this community will homogenize and follow the same fate as Digg/Reddit. It is inevitable...
    - rrival 19y ago
      It's not inevitable. I'm not sure how long you've been lurking; there is a shared desire to perpetuate the level of discourse in a way that benefits the community. We've also got the "don't say something stupid, the natives are very smart / clever / motivated and deserve your respect" factor, the "ask yc news/ask pg and almost always get intelligent actionable feedback from experienced hackers/entrepreneurs" factor, and the "if I have an idea and demonstrate talent I might get noticed / funded, so I better not say something really stupid" factor. Releasing data is a '?' - if it can be suggested that it may be a means to arrive at some sort of method for automatically/technically ensuring the community doesn't move toward the same kind of mob mentality, that's fantastic, let the heavyweight theory guys find something cool to do with it. If that fails, there's still moderation, and a strong desire to perpetuate the high signal to noise ratio here.
    - bayareaguy 19y ago
      I know that eventually as News.YC becomes more popular this community will homogenize Suppose you wanted to convince someone who doesn't "know" that. Don't you think the right data could prove your point?
      - 19y ago